Consensus and the Proportionality of Office Distribution in the , 1994-2007

Paper prepared for the tenth EUSA Biennial International Conference, Montréal, Québec, 17 to 19 May 2007. Panel 9G: Democratic Representation in the European Parliament, 08.30, Saturday 19 May.

Abstract:

Consensus is embedded in the European Parliament. One of its forms is in the proportionality that applies between political groups in the distribution of office positions, such as Committee Chairman or Bureau members, that affect policy outcomes. Consensus has withstood successive institutional change and enlargement of Parliament’s membership in 2004. The paper links empirical evidence with theory to question the assumption that Parliament is internally competitive. Members of the European Parliament achieve outcomes they desire either by allying with elements in other institutions or challenging them convincingly. For this to be attained, the construction of multi-party consensus by sharing office across an oversized majority is indispensable.

Keywords: European Parliament; Committees; Parties; Legislative Politics

Number of words (excluding appendix): 9,039

Author contact details:

Dr Giacomo Benedetto Lecturer in Politics Department of Politics and International Relations Royal Holloway University of London GB - TW20 0EX Egham

E-mail: [email protected]

Introduction 1

In 1999 the centre-right won the European Parliament (EP) elections. The Chrstian

Democrats and Conservatives of the European People’s Party (EPP) opted to use their position of increased strength vis-à-vis the losing Party of European Socialists (PES) to conclude an agreement with the smaller Liberal (ELDR) Group at the expense of the former. The agreement covered the election of Parliament’s President in 1999 and

2002, the logrolling of important committee chairs between the two groups, and a new status for the ELDR as the preferred interlocutor of the EPP on policy matters.

Before 1999, this type of agreement had existed between the two largest groups, the

EPP and PES, for a decade. In 2004, the EPP/ED 2 opted to revert to it, substituting the

PES for the ELDR. The return to full consensus between the two largest groups shows that the Parliament’s consensual mechanisms were too strong to fray even when conditions appeared ripe for change.

This paper argues that the changing agreements for accessing influential positions within the European Parliament’s hierarchy did not in fact affect the proportional allocation of office in the Parliament following the 1999 elections. With the presidency excepted, the PES were in no sense excluded from accessing positions in proportion to their group’s size.

Although competition on legislative matters may have increased, the paper tests the hypothesis that the proportional distribution of office has remained intact. It analyses how the assignment of office has modified since 1994, given the enhancement of the

Parliament’s institutional powers following Maastricht and Amsterdam, increased

1 I would like to thank Ernesto Calvo, Simon Hix, Christopher Lord and Gail McElroy for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks are also due to the British Academy (award OCG- 46274) for financial assistance in attending this conference. 2 The Group of the EPP changed its name to EPP/ED (EPP/European Democrats) in 1999 to widen its appeal to Conservative parties outside the Christian Democratic tradition.

2 institutional powers, and changing representation of government and opposition parties in the European institutions, and the Enlargement of 2004 that led to the arrival of 162 MEPs from the new member states. On occasions, where the distribution of office is not proportional, this is a consequence of self-exclusion, rather than competition with winners and losers.

The first part of the paper introduces a theory of office distribution and explains how the main hypothesis will be tested. The second part of the paper addresses the competition for the office of President of the Parliament since 2007, before covering the distribution of parliamentary vice-presidencies between the groups. The allocation of the policy-related committee chairs is the subject of the next section, at the end of which I present two specific quantitative hypotheses concerned with office positions between and within the groups. In the fourth section, those hypotheses are tested.

3 1. Why Consensus? From Office to Policy

The assignment of positions is normally agreed in advance by the main political groups, which only contest elections when consensus breaks down. The distribution of internal parliamentary positions offers political group leaders the chance to share out goods among their members. Research by McElroy (2001) has shown that political groups have always recognised committees as a potential supply of incentives and patronage. If national interests can be reconciled in a transnational system, these cases show that politicians prefer an equitable division of offices and resources, so that multinational and multiparty power sharing can be maintained. Kreppel (2002: 202) concludes that national delegations determine the allocation of office, having dismissed voting behaviour or attendance levels as influential factors. However, she does not consider why some nationalities are consistently under represented within the groups, even if proportionality applies as a general rule.

As a political system, the meets all the criteria of Lijphart (1984) for a consensus democracy. We should therefore expect a proportional distribution of important office positions between the political groups. My prediction is that whereas parties distribute less influential office to smaller delegations in order to retain unity so that everyone gets something , the more influential positions are a prize considered worthy of contestation but within Parliament’s embedded mechanisms of consensus.

These mechanisms are path dependent (Pierson 2000), because an optimal alternative of a majoritarian system with winners and losers is rejected in view of the sunk costs of risking the loss of power in the long run.

The hypothesis will be tested using a qualitative analysis of events that have taken place since 1994 in the next sections. These will be followed by the presentationa and

4 testing of quantitative hypotheses to measure proportionality in the assignment of positions, whether as committee chairs, between political groups and their constituent national parties. Although I do not expect the obvious identification of winners and losers in this context, it is likely that within the political groups, national delegations whose attendance records are low, who lack a high number of experts or suffer from high turnover will be under represented.

The share of parliamentary positions allocated in a consensus system would lead us to presuppose that a proportional distribution of office would occur within the

European Parliament. This is the case in systems such as that of Switzerland, where the major parties of parliament are all represented in government and among the chairs of parliamentary committees. Parliamentary positions are also allocated in

Belgium, Germany, and even the UK, in which a parliamentary opposition excluded from the executive is nevertheless granted access to positions within the parliamentary hierarchy. France, Spain and, since 1994, have systems where the opposition is also excluded from influential positions in the legislature. While a fully competitive system would be characterised by the total exclusion of an opposition from positions such as chair of parliamentary committee, as in France or Italy, a consensual system is characterised by the proportional distribution of such positions.

Carroll, Cox and Pachon (2004) define committee chairs and what they call ‘board members’, equivalent to members of the Enlarged Bureau (President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors) as ‘mega-seats’. I shall follow them by using this term in for the rest of the paper.

5

2. The Parliamentary Bureau and Left-Right Competition

This section analyses the extent of consensus and competition that exists between the political groups in the assignment of places on the Parliament’s (enlarged) Bureau.

This is the body that leads Parliament, and consists of the President, Vice-Presidents, and Quaestors. The first part of the section focuses on the consensus that existed between the EPP and PES Groups in the assignment of the Parliament’s President until 1999. The second part argues that consensus is maintained between the five largest political groups and many of the larger national party delegations in the appointments to the less powerful members of the Bureau, while the third part examines the extent to which the events of 1999 may have heralded a new era of competition in the elections of for the Parliament’s presidency, prior to reverting to the “Grand Coalition” in 2004.

At least one position on the Bureau is assigned to a member from the two main political parties of the four or five largest states. Application of the D'Hondt method 3 of proportionality between the groups will also mean that some of the smaller groups, like the ELDR or , gain something. Beyond that, the tendency is to allocate additional mega-seats to some of the smaller national party delegations within the two large political groups. Committee chairs are allocated in a similar way within the two large groups. A large delegation, like the British Labour Party or French Socialists, is usually able to chair an important committee and gain a vice-presidency of

Parliament. Meanwhile, the smaller delegations from states like Greece or Sweden will only be able to gain the leadership of a committee or a vice-presidency (but not

3 This is illustrated in Table 2.

6 both) and usually have to revolve such positions between them. For example, a

Swedish Social Democrat chaired the Women's Committee in 1999 but this passed to a Greek Socialist in 2002, with neither delegation holding office during the other period.

2.1. The President of the European Parliament, 1994-1999

The office of President is the most contested position within the Parliament’s internal hierarchy. The President presides over the opening of each plenary session, keeping order and has a substantial administrative role. S/he chairs the Parliament

Bureau of Vice-Presidents and chairs the Conference of Presidents, which is the committee of political group leaders that decides the agenda of Parliament and ultimately brokers agreements between the groups. The President is also the

Parliament’s external representative and meets with the Presidents of the other EU institutions, addresses the European Council, and attends IGCs.

Between 1989 and 1999, the PES and EPP revolved the presidency between them, the then larger PES Group holding it during the first half of each parliamentary term and the EPP holding it during the second half. Although the member parties of the

PES and EPP usually compete against each other for governmental office at national level, it was decided that at the level of the European Parliament both groups had more to gain by co-operating. This allowed the Parliament to present itself as a more united institution on occasions when there was consensus for it to stand up to the other institutions, as discussed by Hix, Kreppel, and Noury (2003: 319). It also facilitated reaching the absolute majority thresholds for amending legislation under the co- operation and co-decision procedures introduced respectively by the SEA in 1987 and

7 the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993. Speaking before the election of a parliamentary

Vice-President in 1998, Wilfried Martens, President of the EPP Group, defended the arrangement and argued the Parliament could not enjoy the luxury of division:

‘During the present legislature there was an agreement between the most important groups, the Group of European Socialists and ours… We see the above rule as a fundamental rule for our Parliament. The position of our Parliament remains extremely fragile.’ 4

Table 1: Unsuccessful Mega-Seat Competition, 1994-2007

Year Mega-seat Challenger Support Votes Greens, ERA, EUL, 1994 Vice-President of EP Ripa di Maena 234 some PES and ELDR Chair of Research PES, EUL, Greens, 1994 5 Désama 13 Committee ERA EUL, Greens, ERA 1997 President Lalumière 177 (Radicals), some PES Bloch von 1998 Vice-President of EP Greens, some PES 141 Blottnitz 1999 Fontaine and Cox elected as President as part of EPP/ED-ELDR deal, with and PES challenge 2002 ALDE, UEN, Greens, 2004 President Geremek 208 some EPP/ED Greens, EUL, some 2007 President Frassoni 145 PES and ALDE

At the time of the election of the President in 1994 and at other times, representatives of the smaller groups protested about their 'undemocratic exclusion' from positions of influence in the Parliament. 6 The view of the larger groups is that

there is nothing “undemocratic” about a system that reflects an embedded consensus

between those large groups and that shares out mega-seats that carry policy influence

across groups according to proportionate size. Consensus within Parliament does not

4 Verbatim Report of Proceedings of the European Parliament, Official Journal of the European Communities , 17 June 1998. 5 The election was limited to members of the Committee only, with 13 voting for Désama and 12 voting for his Forza Europa opponent, Umberto Scapagnini. 6 Verbatim Report of Proceedings of the European Parliament, Official Journal of the European Communities 19 July 1994.

8 mean that there is no conflict, rather it means that conflict is contained within consensual mechanisms. The consensus between the large groups has always prevailed, despite being challenged unsuccessfully on numerous occasions illustrated in Table 1.

2.2. The Vice-Presidents and Quaestors

Fourteen parliamentary Vice-Presidents and five Quaestors 7 are also elected at the constitutive session, although the number of posts allocated to the different political groups is normally agreed in advance. Institutional change has not affected elections for these mega-seats, which has remained consensual. The elections for Quaestors are contested more often and on the basis of personality connected to the office of

Quaestor. These mega-seats tend to be contested only by an excluded group or independent-minded MEPs who do not accept the decisions of the group leaderships in selecting candidates, and is hardly significant in terms of the relative lack of importance of these posts.

The Vice-Presidents deputise for the President in official functions, revolve the task of chairing plenary sessions between each other and the President and, with the

President, are members of the Bureau. The Enlarged Bureau includes the Quaestors.

Three of the Vice-Presidents drawn from the two large groups also sit as permanent members of the Parliament-Council Conciliation Committee, under the co-decision procedure.

Application of the D’Hondt method, agreed by the major groups, is applied in elections for the Bureau seats, illustrating the level of institutionalised consensus in

7 Quaestors manage the facilities available for MEPs. In 2007, their number was increased from 5 to 6.

9 the form of unwritten rules. The D’Hondt system does not appear in the Parliament’s

Rules of Procedure. The entitlement to Bureau seats is reduced by two for the group holding the Presidency of the Parliament. It was practice to elect two Quaestors from each of the two large groups and one from a small group. In 1994 after the election of a PES President, the D’Hondt method allowed for the election of six EPP, five

Socialists, one Liberal, one EUL, and one Forza Europa (FE) Vice-Presidents (Table

4). However, the nomination of a candidate from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Europa was contested by the Greens and other left-wing MEPs. In the ensuing debate, Ria

Oomen-Ruijten of the EPP shared the concern of Martens for the delicate balance in the Parliament and insisted the observance of the D’Hondt formula meant voting for

Alessandro Fontana 8 of Forza Europa. At the third ballot Fontana was elected with

278 votes against 234 for the Green candidate, Carlo Ripa di Maena. Although this election was contested, the result was that the unwritten rules of consensus were maintained (Table 1).

2.3. Substituting Liberals for Socialists in 1999: Competition or Continuity?

In 1999 the EPP became the largest group for the first time, providing it with the opportunity of establishing itself in a more influential position, with the help of the

ELDR. This was an incentive for the agreement of the two groups, with the EPP being

‘determined to vehemently fight attempts to introduce a socialist agenda in Europe’. 9

On this occasion, the competition leading to an exclusion of the PES was an exception that proved the consensual rule. While the EPP/ED and ELDR groups chose to logroll, the PES continued to access mega-seats and influence according to the

8 Verbatim Report of Proceedings of the European Parliament, Official Journal of the European Communities , 19 July 1994. 9 EPP Programme, 1999-2004, , February 1999.

10 D’Hondt method. The EPP/ED and ELDR emphasised the need for political balance between the institutions:

‘The delicate balance between the EU institutions and national parliaments may be disrupted by excessive politicisation and a disregard for the balance of power.’ 10

‘The ELDR believes in making this agreement with the EPP that through the European Parliament we contribute in some way to restoring a broad political equilibrium between the various political forces in the EU even if institution by institution and case by case such balances cannot exist.’ 11

Besides being assured EPP/ED support for the bid of Patrick Cox, Leader of the

ELDR Group, to become President of the Parliament in succession to its own candidate Nicole Fontaine, the agreement extended to the ELDR being allocated the chair of the Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights Committee. Both groups also agreed to work towards the creation of common statutes for MEPs and their assistants.

The ELDR was keen to emphasise the limits of the agreement with the EPP/ED and the fact that on issues not connected to the constitutive agreement, it would operate independently, taking advantage of its pivotal status between the two larger groups:

‘It is an agreement in relation to the constitutive sessions of the European Parliament over the coming five years. It is not a political coalition… We cherish our policy integrity and independence and in our negotiations insisted on maintaining our right to pursue our own policy agenda within the European Parliament, seeking coalitions to our left or to our right as appropriate on a case by case basis.’ 12

One of the effects of the separation of powers on the European Parliament is the absence of a government-opposition dynamic, so that political groups have always

10 EPP Action Programme, 1999-2004, Brussels, February 1999. 11 ELDR press release, Brussels, 15 July 1999. 12 ELDR press release, Brussels, 15 July 1999.

11 been free to construct case-by-case alliances. This occurred for roll call votes as well as the election of the President of Parliament. The separation of powers, flexible alliance approach, and a belief in ‘balance’ characterised the approach of the ELDR

Group in 1999, since this allowed them to maximise their pivotal influence. In 1999,

Nicole Fontaine was elected President with 306 votes, coming from the EPP/ED,

Liberals, and possibly a few Socialists. Mario Soares of the PES had 200 votes from members of the PES and EUL Groups, while Heidi Hautala of the Greens received 49 votes.

Table 2: Votes cast in the election for President of the Parliament, January 2002

Candidate Supported by Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Patrick Cox EPP/ED, ELDR 254 277 298 David Martin PES 184 226 237 Jens-Peter Bonde EDD , some UEN, 66 76 33 EPP/ED Francis Wurtz EUL 42 - - Gérard Onesta Greens 37 - - Total votes 590 592 586 Void votes 7 13 18 Valid votes 583 579 568 Necessary majority 292 290 285

Table 2 illustrates the distribution of votes that took place in January 2002 in the election of the Parliament’s President. Pat Cox, the leader of the ELDR, was duly elected President with the support of the EPP/ED Group, honouring the alliance of

1999. He was challenged unsuccessfully by the excluded groups, including the PES.

Nevertheless, the Socialists were very much included in the attribution of mega-seats later that week.

In 2004, following the arrival of 164 MEPs from the new member states, increasing the EP’s membership to 732, positions continued to be allocated between groups,

12 according to the D’Hondt method. The one “majoritarian” post, the Presidency, became the subject of a new agreement between the EPP/ED and the PES, excluding the Liberals, as had been the case before 1999.

The assignment of the chairs of the Parliament’s committees works in a similar way.

However, it is practice for smaller delegations that do not have a place on the Bureau to be allocated a committee chair. This will be examined in the next section.

3. Competition and Co-operation for the Assignment of Committee Chairs

The increased legislative power of the Parliament since the late 1980s means that the committees are much more closely linked with outcomes in European level legislation. The European Parliament is a committee-based legislature. As a result we would expect the group leaderships to take an active interest in which MEPs are appointed to committees. The experience of an MEP and the extent of his or her specialisation in a particular policy area will influence the decisions of group leaderships in assigning both the membership of specific committees and the allocation of the committee chairs to which each political group is entitled. Cox and

McCubbins (1993) suggest that the committees of the US Congress are instruments of parties and facilitate the passing of legislation. Cox and McCubbins (1993) view

Congressional parties as vehicles for the assignment of mega-seats that enable legislators to access the resources that in turn assist with the distribution of constituency benefits that will secure re-election. Krehbiel (1991) on the other hand views committees as a means for accessing information by the legislature so that it can improve the legislative specialisation and eventual output of its members. Both of

13 these characteristics apply to the EP, although policy outcomes are more relevant for the careers of MEPs than direct constituency benefits.

As mentioned before, during the 1994-1999 Parliament Wilfried Martens emphasised the need for mega-seats to be distributed between political groups in strict proportionality in order that Parliament, dependent on the consensus of the major political tendencies, not be endangered. While individual delegations within the groups determine which of their members are appointed to specific committees, the assignment of chairs is left to the groups as a whole and then to the larger delegations thereof, in a similar way to the distribution of office within the Bureau. However, the groups and larger delegations within them are constrained by the demands of seniority. Although there are cases of MEPs without previous experience being elected to senior committee positions, these are more the exception than the rule. In

1999, seniority as defined in the previous section 13 applied to each of the seventeen committee chairs, except for the Chair of the Petitions Committee

Literature on coalition formation focuses on the formation of governments, including explanations of which parties are likely to bid for which ministries (Budge and Keman 1993). To an extent, a similar methodology can be applied to the legislative coalition of all the political groups that are large enough to obtain at least one committee chair. Budge and Keman (1993: 53) argue that Ministries are normally allocated in proportion to the seats that government parties hold in a Parliament. Some parties are interested in particular Ministries more than others. Budge and Keman

(1993: 102) found that of the 65 different European governments analysed over an historical time period that contained agrarian parties, in 54 cases the Ministry of

Agriculture was held by agrarians. In governments where agrarian parties are absent

13 Long service in the EP or in a senior role in national politics.

14 but Christian Democrats are present the latter take the Ministry of Agriculture on 83 percent of occasions. In cases when Socialists are in government, they tend to take the

Ministries concerned with social affairs, employment and health. If the Socialists are absent from government, these Ministries revert to socially conscious Christian

Democrats rather than free market Liberals. In a grand coalition comprising Socialists and Christian Democrats, we would expect the Socialists to take the social ministries and the Christian Democrats to take Agriculture, without dispute. However, competition might occur between the two not only on the major offices like Foreign

Affairs and Finance, but also on Education if the church-secular cleavage were strong.

The fact that some parties in a coalition want certain ministries that interest other parties far less, while the competition for certain other ministries may be intense is equally true when it comes to sharing out committee chairs in the European

Parliament.

Carroll, Cox and Pachon (2004) collected data from the legislatures of 57 states in order to measure whether such posts were allocated between parties according to majoritarian or proportional norms. They link those norms to the party system type that is in force. Significantly they find that ‘board seats’ are distributed between parties in a less proportionate way than committee chairs. Allocation of seats on the

EP’s Bureau is highly proportional, but maybe that is difficult to avoid given the size of its membership at 20, rising to 21 in 2007.

Bowler and Farrell (1995: 227) confirm that competition for the membership of certain committees makes them reasonably representative of the EP as a whole. For example, business and labour are both well represented on the Parliament’s social, economic, and industrial committees. The agrarian and fisheries sectors are over represented on the Agriculture and Fisheries Committees (Varela 2001), while

15 opponents of the Agricultural and Fisheries policies are less well represented, maybe preferring the Budgets, Budgetary Control, or Environment Committees.

As the institutional powers of the Parliament have been enhanced, some committees have gained more power than others, so that the political groups target some more than others for reasons of policy. Until the late 1980s, when the Parliament had only consultative power the Chair of the Agriculture Committee was covetted by the EPP

Group, on account of the share of the EU budget that the Common Agricultural Policy received at the time. Although still large, the share of the budget devoted to

Agriculture has since fallen, no substantial legislative power has been given to the

Parliament in the field of agriculture, while the powers of the Parliament have increased in other policy areas, whose budget allocations have likewise grown.

Consequently, the Chair of the Agriculture Committee is no longer so highly demanded by the EPP/ED which would prefer to gain the chairs of the committees on the Environment, Economic and Monetary Affairs, Foreign Policy, Budgetary

Control, and Regions. The Greens also grew in strength, increasing their number from

22 in 1994 to 48 in 1999 and have developed policy interests in agriculture, which led them to assume the Chair of the Agriculture Committee.

McElroy (2001) considers various methods for ranking, including those formulated by Groseclose and Stewart (1998), whereby we can count the number of transfers from one committee to another and conclude that the committees gaining new members are the important ones. McElroy's application of this approach to the period before 1999 shows that the Development Committee was more highly ranked that the

External Economic Relations Committee, although the Development Committee is less powerful. The explanation for this must be that power alone is not the only force in motivating the choice of MEPs. Development issues may be more appealing for

16 left-wing representatives without specialisation in trade issues, who would find membership of the External Economic Relations Committee uninspiring. In terms of ranking the order of committee preferences, comparisons with the US Congress are not helpful. The EP has a much higher turnover than Congress. National delegations often have pre-ordained senior members that will be appointed to whichever committee chairs are available.

One method used to rank committees in absolute terms is to measure the quantity of legislation that they consider, particularly under the co-decision procedure. The assumption is that a powerful legislative committee is the first choice of most MEPs.

However, this does not cover issues that may be of personal interest to individual

MEPs, sufficient for them to opt for membership of largely consultative committees.

In 1999, Michel Rocard, the pre-ordained candidate of the French Socialists to chair a committee was moved from heading the Development to the Employment and Social

Affairs Committee, effectively a promotion. He was displeased with this since he had a personal affection for development issues and approached the EUL Group, which had opted to head the Development Committee from its remaining choices. 14 The

EUL Group was content to exchange Development for Employment and Social

Affairs with Rocard, although neither the French Socialist delegation nor the PES

Group were in agreement, so that Rocard was compelled to accept his “promotion”.

The ranking method that I use is not absolute. The leadership of each committee is decided firstly between the groups, and then between the national delegations within each group, according to the D'Hondt method. Table 3 shows the logical place within the “pecking order” that the larger national delegations have. The D’Hondt method

14 Meeting of the EUL Group, Strasbourg, July 1999.

17 has been used for assigning positions between the groups since the Parliament was directly-elected in 1979 (Kreppel 2002: 189) and is now institutionalised.

Table 3: Logical attribution of committee chairs to political groups and national party delegations in 1999, according to number of seats, calculated by the D’Hondt formula Preference Group Seats Delegation Seats 1 EPP/ED 233 CDU-CSU 53 reduced to 116.5 26.5 2 PES 180 SPD 33 reduced to 90 16.5 3 EPP/ED 116.5 Cons 36 reduced to 77.7 18 4 PES 90 Labour 29 reduced to 60 14.5 5 EPP/ED 77.7 PP 28 reduced to 58.3 14 6 PES 60 PSOE 24 reduced to 45 12 7 EPP/ED 58.3 CDU-CSU 26.5 reduced to 46.6 17.7 8 ELDR 51 LibDem 10 reduced to 25.5 5 9 Greens 48 Verts 9 reduced to 24 4.5 10 EPP/ED 46.6 Forza 21 reduced to 38.8 10.5 11 PES 45 PS (F) 22 reduced to 36 11 12 EUL 42 PCF or PDS 6 reduced to 21 3 13 EPP/ED 38.8 Cons 18 reduced to 33.3 12 14 PES 36 DS-SDI 17 reduced to 30 8.5 15 EPP/ED 33.3 CDU-CSU 17.7 reduced to 29.1 13.3 6 PES 30 SPD 16.5 reduced to 25.7 11 17 EPP/ED 29.1 PP 14 reduced to 25.9 9.3

In 1994 and 1997, following the Budge and Keman (1993) analysis we can imagine that the chairs of any of the six or seven most popular committees would have been

18 attractive to either of the main groups. As mentioned above, the unwritten agreement between the PES and EPP to allocate social and environment committees to the PES and economic committees to the EPP was terminated in 1999. The increasing legislative and regulatory profile of the Environment Committee whose influence over consumer policy was growing in the wake of BSE, dioxin and genetically modified foods made its chair a target for the EPP/ED Group. In turn the EPP/ED was prepared to sacrifice the chair of the Economic and Monetary Committee. However, in 1994 despite its limited powers, the Agriculture Committee retained its importance, at least in so far as overseeing the Common Agricultural Policy and yet its chair was allotted to the small EDA (Gaullist) Group, which had only the sixteenth choice from the committees. Other less prestigious committees, also with limited powers but with lower policy budgets at European level were preferred by the larger delegations, which found them more relevant than Agriculture. By 1999, Agriculture had become a priority policy area for the Greens, not least on account of food scares and its connection to environmental policy. The improved representation of the Green Group also meant that it was entitled to the ninth rather than twentieth choice of committee.

As Table 4 shows, the allocation of committee chairs and Bureau seats between the groups in 2004-2007 followed the D’Hondt formula with no more hiccups than usual.

In 2007, competition occurred within the EPP/ED Group on the allocation of its

Bureau seats and committee chairs. The Polish PO failed to have its candidate accepted, according to the unwritten rules, for a Vice-Presidency of the Parliament.

After some weeks, PO was successful in claiming the first choice of EPP/ED committee chair as “compensation”. For a small delegation (15 MEPs) taking the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, meant displacing Elmar Brok of the CDU-

CSU (49 MEPs). As the largest delegation of the largest group, the CDU-CSU had

19 controlled this committee, exercising the first choice among all delegations. The

CDU-CSU exercised second choice within the Group, displacing the British

Conservatives on the Industry Committee, who were demoted to Agriculture. 15

On the rare occasions that competition emerged, as with the fourteenth vice- presidency of Parliament or Chair of the Research Committee in 1994, the end of logrolling between the EPP and PES in 1999, and the dispute with the EPP/ED in

2007, the result was the reconfirmation of embedded consensus, the eventual election of the “correct candidate”, or compensation for his party in the case of the PO, and continued observance of the D’Hondt mechanism. Although the CDU-CSU and

British Conservatives were “demoted” in 2007, they still retained their correct number of mega-seats. Competition between and within political groups exists in the

European Parliament, but it is contained within embedded mechanisms of consensus.

This leads me to develop the following, more specific hypotheses:

H1: that the allocation of committee chairs and Bureau seats between the groups has remained consistently proportional, according to the D’Hondt formula since 1994.

H2: that within the EPP/ED and PES groups, the allocation of “mega-seats” between national party delegations has remained proportional.

The first hypothesis will be tested by running the D’Hondt formula against the seat totals of each of the political groups since 1994 to establish whether each group has received its “correct” share of committee chairs and bureau seats.

The second hypothesis will be tested through the means of correlations and Poisson regressions. The mega-seats in question are EP Bureau seats, including the President, the leaders of each of the two large groups, committee chairs, and group coordinators

(leaders) on each of the committees. In order to create a consistent dataset, the

15 euobserver.com, 24 th , 25 th , 30 th January 2007.

20 selection of type of mega-seats is subjective, but goes beyond those prescribed by

Carroll, Cox and Pachon (2004), with the inclusion of committee coordinators. Vice- chairmen of some of the committees are considered important, as are the vice- presidencies of some of the political groups, but not the PES. The selection of Poisson regressions is appropriate since the dependent variable (the number of mega-seats per national party) is a count whose allocation does not depend directly on the allocation of seats elsewhere, while all variables are whole integers and none are set at less than zero.

4. Positions between and within the Political Groups

While the previous section analysed the share of committee chairs between the groups and presented the hypotheses, this section tests them. In the first part, the

D’Hondt formula is used to test the level of its observance in allocating mega-seats between rather than within the groups. The subsequent sub-sections test the second hypothesis by concentrating on the share of positions between national delegations within each of the large groups. The section concludes with Poisson regressions of the distribution of positions within the two large groups. Even if on balance, such distribution is proportional, this analysis will illustrate the extent of any skew in that proportionality according to relevant control variables.

4.1 Seats on the Parliament’s Bureau and Committee Chairmen

Table 4 displays the results of the allocation of committee chairmen and Bureau seats between the political groups since 1994. In each case, the ‘actual numbers’ are

21 the quantity of committee chairmen or Bureau members assigned to each group, while the columns marked ‘D’Hondt Allocation’ are the share that would have been allocated if the D’Hondt formula were perfectly applied. This takes into account an unwritten norm that the Group filling the Presidency of the Parliament loses two other seats on the Bureau.

We can see that the allocations follow the D’Hondt formula almost to the letter.

Committee chairmen were perfectly assigned except in 1994 and 2004. In 1994, although too small to gain a committee chairman, the Greens were nevertheless allocated one at the expense of the EPP. In 2004, the Eurosceptic Independence and

Democracy (ID) Group with 37 MEPs spurned the offer of the chairmanship of the

Petitions Committee, in preference to a senior vice-chairmanship of the Environment

Committee. 16 The leadership of the Petitions Committee was allocated to the smaller

UEN Group instead.

Consistent with the comparative findings of Carroll, Cox and Pachon (2004) across

56 legislatures, the allocation of seats on the Bureau is marginally less proportional.

There are 20 seats on the Bureau, which rose to 21 in 2007. They were allocated in synchrony with the D’Hondt formula in 2002. Of the 20 seats, three were “misplaced” in 2004 and in the other years between one and two, at the expense of the smaller groups.

Committee chairmen have been allocated according to the D’Hondt norms between the groups, with any disproportionality actually favouring smaller groups like the

Greens in 1994 and the UEN in 2004. Meanwhile the disproportionality of up to 10 percent on the Bureau has not excluded those smaller groups. Unless they self- exclude, all groups with at least 30 MEPs (now equivalent to around 4 percent of the

16 Interview, Jens-Peter Bonde MEP, leader of the ID Group, Brussels, July 2004.

22 total) can gain control of at least one committee chair or Bureau seat. This shows that

Hypothesis 1 is correct.

23

Table 4: Allocation of Committee Chairs and Bureau Members to Political Groups in reality and according to the D’Hondt formula 1994 1997 1999 2002 2004 2007

MEPs MEPs Actual Numbers D'Hondt Allocation MEPs Actual Numbers D'Hondt Allocation MEPs Actual Numbers D'Hondt Allocation MEPs Actual Numbers D'Hondt Allocation MEPs Actual Numbers D'Hondt Allocation MEPs Actual Numbers D'Hondt Allocation

COMMITTEE CHAIRS EPP/ED 155 6 7 181 7 7 233 8 8 232 8 8 268 9 9 277 9 9 PES 201 9 9 216 8 8 180 6 6 179 6 6 198 7 7 217 7 7 ELDR-ALDE 43 1 1 38 1 1 51 1 1 53 1 1 88 3 3 106 3 3 Greens 21 1 0 28 1 1 48 1 1 45 1 1 42 1 1 42 1 1 ERA 21 0 0 21 0 0 EUL/NGL 28 1 1 33 1 1 42 1 1 44 1 1 41 1 1 41 1 1 EDA-UPE-UEN 29 1 1 58 2 2 21 0 0 22 0 0 27 1 0 44 1 1 FE 29 1 1 IEN-EDD-ID 15 0 0 15 0 0 16 0 0 18 0 0 37 0 1 24 0 0 TDI-ITS 18 0 0 21 0 0 BUREAU MEMBERS EPP/ED 155 8 8 181 6 5 233 8 7 232 10 10 268 10 9 277 8 6 PES 201 8 7 216 9 10 180 8 8 179 7 7 198 6 4 217 7 8 ELDR-ALDE 43 1 2 38 1 1 51 2 2 53 1 1 88 2 3 106 3 4 Greens 21 0 0 28 0 1 48 1 2 45 1 1 42 1 1 42 1 1 ERA 21 0 0 21 0 0 EUL/NGL 28 2 1 33 2 1 42 1 1 44 1 1 41 1 1 41 1 1 EDA-UPE-UEN 29 0 1 58 2 2 21 0 0 22 0 0 27 0 1 44 1 1 FE 29 1 1 IEN-EDD-ID 15 0 0 15 0 0 16 0 0 18 0 0 37 0 1 24 0 0 TDI-ITS 18 0 0 21 0 0 26

4.2. Committee Co-ordinators

The main political groups appoint a co-ordinator or group leader on each of the committees, who takes responsibility for that policy area. As such they act on behalf of the group’s wider leadership (Whitaker 2001). They make sure that the members of their groups are allocated influential reports. Whitaker’s evidence suggests that once a group is assigned an important report, the co-ordinator decides which of his or her

MEPs will actually be the rapporteur . Rapporteurs write the legislative report for the committee and build consensus in committee and across Parliament for proposals to be passed, where necessary being part of Parliament’s negotiating team with the

Council and Commission. Whitaker addresses whether committees are run more by their chairs, which would suggest that they are institutionally independent, or by the co-ordinators, in which case we could conclude that the political groups are the main arbiters of the Parliament. The interview data collected indicate that neither the chairs nor co-ordinators prevail over the other.

Within the two large groups, one startling fact is the very small number of constituent parties from which the co-ordinators are drawn (Appendix: Tables A1 and

A2). Whereas the other mega-seats mentioned above are distributed roughly proportionately, the office of co-ordinator is not. It is assigned to those MEPs who choose to specialise in particular areas and who are committed to remaining in the

European Parliament for more than one term. This eliminates those who come from member states whose delegations have a tradition of high turnover.

Of the EPP/ED co-ordinators elected in 2004, six were German, five were British, five were Spanish, two were Dutch, two were Greek, with one each coming from Austria, Italy and Ireland, with none from France. In 1999, there were no co- ordinators among either group’s 51 Italian or 43 French members. It is the members of the British, German, and Spanish member parties of the PES that occupy the leading positions of policy held by the Group, mirroring the case of the EPP/ED, at least until the 2004 elections.

4.3. Mega-seats within the EPP/ED and PES Groups

Together with the previous sub-section, here I investigate Hypothesis 2 concerning the proportionality of mega-seat distribution within the political gropus. The analysis is limited to the EPP/ED and PES Groups only. The other smaller groups are not included. This is because they tend to be allocated one committee chair and parliamentary vice-presidency for the whole group and so far as their committee co- ordinators are concerned, it could happen that more than one-third of a group’s members are co-ordinators. This was the case for the ELDR in 1994, when 20 committee co-ordinators were drawn from 43 MEPs in total.

Evaluations of correlations between mega-seats and the size of national party delegations will follow. The subsection concludes with the Poisson regressions of mega-seats internal to both large groups.

Table 5: Correlations between mega-seats and sizes of national party delegations in the EPP and PES Groups, 1994-2007 1994 & 1997 1999 & 2002 2004 & 2007 EPP 0.959 0.948 0.918 PES 0.978 0.842 0.795

A high degree of proportionality within the groups applied in the 1994 Parliament.

The correlations fell significantly in both 1999 and in the Parliament elected in 2004.

28 However, a figure of .795 still indicates significant proportionality on this scale.

Besides “competition”, reasons for decreasing proportionality include not just the arrival of larger numbers of inexperienced MEPs as a consequence of EU

Enlargement per se, but a growing total number of disparate political parties joining the two large groups leading to significant heterogeneity in which some will play a more marginal role.

An important caveat on these data is that they measure mega-seats held, purely in terms of numbers, without a system of weighting for more important positions. To be

President of the Parliament is more important than to be Group Co-ordinator on the

Petitions Committee, but these qualitative considerations are not factored in.

Running a Poisson regression is helpful in balancing the fact that many small delegations could have extreme variation in the dependent variable of mega-seats, ranging from a ratio of zero to 1.0. Poisson regressions allow for counts where all the variables are integers and many of the dependent variables can be set at zero.

I test to see if there is a difference in favour of MEPs coming from the five largest member states and whether the distribution of mega-seats internal to each of the EPP and PES Groups is proportional:

Log(E(Y office )) = a + b 1SIZE_OF_NATIONAL_PARTY_DELEGATION + b2LEFT_RIGHT_DISTANCE_FROM_GROUP_MEAN + b3PRO/ANTI- INTEGRATION_DISTANCE_FROM_GROUP_MEAN + b4LABOUR (Yes or No) + b5SPD (Yes or No) + …

Yoffice is the dependent variable for the number of mega-seats per national party delegation, b1 is the independent variable and b2 onwards are the control variables.

While only the sample sizes from the EPP and PES Groups are large enough to provide reliable indicators of any bias in the distribution of positions, within these two

29 groups, the five largest delegations can be attributed responsibilities on the basis of their size or according to indicators such as their ideological distance from the mean positions of their groups. For each MEP who is a member of one or other of the five

(six with Poland since 2004) largest delegations within each of the EPP 17 and PES

Groups, a dummy 1 or 0 variable was entered. Ideological distances from the group mean calculated from NOMINATE scores elaborated by the European Parliament

Research Group’s survey of MEP voting behaviour are entered. These concern left- right and pro and anti-European integration distances from the group means.

Tables 6 and 7 show that in gaining mega-seats, in no case are the anti-integration distances of the national delegations statistically significant. We can therefore conclude that they are not relevant in forecasting the likely attribution of mega-seats within the two groups. For the PES, it appears that in 1999-2002, left-right distance was statistically significant but only at the .05 level. For the EPP in all cases and for the PES since 2004 and in the pooled data, the only results consistently significant at below the .01 point are those for the size (number of MEPs) of each national party delegation. Therefore the larger the number of MEPs in a delegation, the greater the number of mega-seats it will have. In these cases, the standard errors are very restrained. Although not significant statistically, the coefficient for number of MEPs in a delegation also remained positive for the PES before 2004.

Within the PES Group, none of the coefficients for the larger national parties before

2004 is statistically significant. In 2004-2007, Labour and the French PS, PSOE and

Italian DS-SDI have negative coefficients, statistically significant at below the .1 point (or .05 for the PSOE). Despite a significant positive coefficient for number of

MEPs per delegation in the 2004 PES Group, the largest delegations appear to be

17 For the EPP coming from Italy: Patto and allies elected in 1994, and UDC since 1999; a sixth category coming from Poland, the PO and PSL; and from France, the UDF, 1994-2002, and the RPR-UMP since 1999.

30 relatively disadvantaged. This may be due to a large number of mega-seats going to some small delegations, such as the member parties from Belgium, Greece and

Hungary. This contrasts with the results for the pooled data of the PES between 1994 and 2007. Here, all coefficients are positive and statistically significant at below the

.01 point. This suggests that larger delegations are favoured overall. They get something every time, unlike the small delegations. But, every time, there are always small delegations who get something and undermine proportionality when looking at an individual Parliament. For example, Proinsias De Rossa, the sole MEP of the Irish

Labour Party held a mega-seat throughout the 1999 Parliament, meaning that his 1- person delegation had a ratio of MEPs to mega-seats of 1.0. This contrasts with the

British Labour Party, over-represented in mega-seats, whose ratio was 0.3 (9 mega- seats out of 28 MEPs).

31

Table 6: Poisson regression 18 of PES mega-seats 19 according to national party delegation and number of MEPs, 1994-2007

1994 & 1997 1999 & 2002 2004 & 2007 Pooled Intercept -.815(1.163) -2.319(1.093)** -1.836(.481)*** -.614(.147)*** No of MEPs .120(.098) .021(.116) .232(.056)*** .026(.007)*** Labour -4.390(5.425) 2.046(2.865) -1.477(.774)* 1.645(.343)*** SPD -1.347(3.240) 3.531(3.351) -1.307(.907) 1.833(.278)*** PS (F) .861(1.589) .429(2.167) -3.975(1.366)* 1.046(.308)*** PSOE -1.391(1.382) 3.703(2.550) -2.350(.996)** 1.440(.273)*** DS-SDI .475(1.163) 2.113(1.427) -1.268(.738)* 1.224(.291)*** Left-Right distance 12.484(11.451) 34.558(16.158)** N/A N/A Pro/Anti distance -7.861(5.854) -1.992(4.430) N/A N/A df 28 31 47 108 N 16 16 25 109 Standard errors in parentheses. * p<.1, ** p<.05, *** p<.01. Dependent variable: the number of mega-seats per national party delegation in the PES Group. Baseline: Delegations other than the largest from the PES Group in the five largest member states. NOMINATE roll call data, 1994-2001, made available from the “How MEPs Vote” project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, code L213 25 2019, as part of the ‘One Europe or Several?’ series.

18 Poisson regression executed using R Development Core Team (2007). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org. 19 Mega-seats defined as: Group leader, President, Vice-President or Quaestor of Parliament, Committee Chair, or Group Co-ordinator on Committee. The reported coefficients are for office held by national party delegation. For descriptive statistics, see Appendix, Tables A3 to A8.

32

Table 7: Poisson regression of EPP seats according to national party delegation and number of MEPs, 1994-2007

1994 & 1997 1999 & 2002 2004 & 2007 Pooled Intercept -1.842(.780)** -1.171(.679)* -2.124(.403)*** -1.118(.165)*** No of MEPs .290(.085)*** .133(.059)** .193(.046)*** .069(.016)*** Conservatives -1.846(1.006)* -.244(2.821) -.924(.959) .888(.467)* CDU-CSU -8.685(3.130)*** 3.284(2.818) -4.863(1.965)** .185(.759) UDF-RPR-UMP -1.270(1.119) .573(.826) -1.162(.870) .224(.404) PP -4.078(1.639)** -.180(1.429) -.643(.858) 1.236(.411)*** Patto-Udeur-SVP -1.538(1.073) - - -1.733(1.010)* Forza-UDC - -.495(1.018) .171(.564) .666(.344)* PO-PSL - - -.830(.789) .338(.628) Left-Right distance -2.472(7.719) -3.535(3.893) N/A N/A Pro/Anti distance -1.743(2.058) -1.040(5.318) N/A N/A Df 31 51 70 159 N 16 26 37 160 Standard errors in parentheses. * p<.1, ** p<.05, *** p<.01. Dependent variable: the number of mega-seats per national party delegation in the EPP Group. Baseline: Delegations other than the largest from the EPP Group in the five largest member states. NOMINATE roll call data, 1994-2001, made available from the “How MEPs Vote” project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, code L213 25 2019, as part of the ‘One Europe or Several?’ series.

Is the EPP any different? As with the PES, when looking at individual Parliaments, the coefficients for the larger member parties are predominantly negative, despite the consistent finding of statistically significant positive correlations for number of MEPs per party. The largest delegation, the German CDU-CSU, is notably under-represented in mega-seats in 1994-1997, while the statistical significance and negative coefficient fall for both the Spanish PP and British Conservatives. In 2004-2007, again the very large

German delegation is penalised, with 49 MEPs providing 12 mega-seats. The EPP contains a larger number of small parties than the PES, many of whom get something.

For example, in 2004-2007, the delegation of the Ulster Unionist Party (1 MEP) is also a

Quaestor, whose ratio of mega-seats to MEPs is 1.0. This is much higher than for the

33 “powerful” British Conservatives (27 MEPs) whose ratio is 0.3. Again, this skews the proportionality in favour of party size when looking at individual Parliaments. The pooled data reveal a different story, ironing out disparities in favour of small delegations.

Here, the large delegations really do all get something every time. The coefficients are

positive except for the Italian Patto-UDEUR-SVP, who were only present in high

numbers in the 1994 Parliament. The British Conservatives and Spanish PP are

particularly well represented in gaining mega-seats.

This sub-section has found that Hypothesis 2, concerning the proportionality in the allocation of mega-seats between delegations within the EPP and PES, is correct, but with some qualifications. Although still high for the PES at .795 and the EPP at .918, the correlations for the distribution of mega-seats according to the size of national party delegations has fallen from levels above .95 for both groups. The Poisson regressions in

Tables 6 and 7 have revealed that the size of the delegation is the single most significant predictor of the number of mega-seats assigned, which indicates proportionality. The pooled data shows that except for one delegation, those coming from the five or six largest states and sitting in the EPP or PES are favoured over smaller delegations. The results for individual Parliaments differ, since smaller delegations may gain something but only on one occasion, while the French, Italian and Spanish parties have, at different times, been less active in taking mega-seats than the British and Germans.

34

Conclusion

Positions of influence within the Parliament are shared proportionately between the

political groups. The larger groups also share out key positions internally, with the

smaller delegations revolving mega-seats. The smaller groups have more limited access

to mega-seats, for example the only committee chaired by a Green in 1994 was the

Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities Committee, considered the least important.

Since 1999, the distribution of mega-seats was marginally more proportional between

groups. This was probably due to fewer fluctuations in the size of groups. However,

competition between the larger groups was more intense, although elections to committee

chairs are not contested competitively. Whereas the larger groups agreed to share out key

committee leadership roles between them, the only important committees controlled by

the PES after 1999 were Economic and Monetary Affairs, Budgets, and Industry. In 2004

the PES lost the latter two but gained Internal Market and Consumer Affairs. Increased

competition took the form of a suspension in logrolling between the two large groups that

had hitherto been practiced, and by a stricter observance of the D’Hondt formula, which

is an embedded consensual mechanism for containing competition.

Proportionality does not apply to the attribution of committee co-ordinators within the

two large groups. The co-ordinator positions are monopolised by northern Europeans, the

Spanish and the Greeks, but not the French. However, the disproportionate allocation of

co-ordinators is not sufficient to distort the more global picture of mega-seats distribution

within the two large groups (Tables 6 and 7).

35 The increased legislative powers of the Parliament, competitive partisan dynamic with the Council, and increased competition within the Parliament provide a challenge for its constituent groups. Any resultant competition is contained by institutionalised power sharing. Those national delegations or groups that are either under represented in mega- seats, including those of co-ordinator or rapporteur (Benedetto 2005), or who hold chairs of only minor committees are distanced from influence on outcomes, although this is often due to self-exclusion, rather than being the result of a situation with clear winners and losers.

The evidence presented in this paper indicates the correctness of the hypothesis that despite a slight increase in competition for mega-seats, the proportional attribution of positions remains intact. This can be understood in terms of the pork barrel that assumes politicians will need to make alliances with each other in order to secure outcomes, in this case, policy or prestige arising from office. However, the role of the separation of powers between Parliament and the Council and Commission that are equally divided in terms of party and nationality is probably more significant. MEPs will only achieve outcomes they desire by either allying with elements in the other institutions, or challenging them convincingly. For this to be achieved, the construction of multi-party consensus by sharing mega-seats across tendencies is the one of most efficient means. Within rather than between the groups, proportionality has survived but declined, particularly since

2004. The one explanation for this must be the arrival of 162 MEPs from the new member states, very few of whom have taken mega-seats.

In the analysis of the European Parliament, Hix, Kreppel, and Noury (2003), Hix,

Noury, and Roland (2005); and Kreppel (2000) identify increasing competition between

36 left and right with regard to legislative decision-making. The application of this preconception to the field of legislative office, such as committee chairs, would lead us to assume not just a suspension of logrolling between the two large groups, but party based competition with visible losers for key committee leadership positions. As this paper has shown, such a development has not occurred. This reflects the Parliament’s embedded mechanisms for consensus.

37 Bibliography:

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Budge, I. and Keman, H. (1993) Parties and democracy: coalition formation and government functioning in twenty states , Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Carroll, R., Cox, G. W., Pachon, M., ‘How parties create electoral democracy, chapter 2’, presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 2004.

Corbett, R., Jacobs, F., and Shackleton, M. (2003) The European Parliament , London: John Harper.

Cox, G. W. and McCubbins, M. D. (1993) Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House , Berkeley: University of California Press.

Groseclose, T. and Stewart, C. (1998) ‘The Value of Committee Seats in the House’, American Journal of Political Science 42(2): 453-474.

Hix, S., Kreppel, A., and Noury, A. (2003) ‘The Party System of the European Parliament: Collusive or Competitive?’ Journal of Common Market Studies 41(2): 309- 331.

Hix, S., Noury, A., and Roland, G. (2005) ‘Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, 1979-2001’,British Journal of Political Science .

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Kreppel, A. (2002) The European Parliament and Supranational Party System , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lijphart, A. (1984) Democracies: Pattern of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in twenty-one Countries , New Haven: Yale University Press.

38

McElroy, G. (2001) ‘Committees and Party Cohesion in the European Parliament’, European Parliament Research Group Working Paper 8, presented at the Conference of the American Political Science Association, 30 August 2001.

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39 Appendix: Descriptive Statistics

Table A1: Distribution of co-ordinators within the EPP Group, 1994-2007 ∗ 1994 1997 1999 2002 2004 ∗∗ 2007* Delegation State MEPs C* MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C CDU-CSU D 47 8 47 9 53 7 53 4 49 6 49 7 CCD-CDU-UDC I - - 4 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 CDA NL 10 3 9 1 9 2 9 2 7 2 7 2 Conservatives GB 18 2 18 3 36 3 35 3 26 5 26 7 CVP-PSC-CSP B 7 1 7 1 6 0 6 0 6 0 6 0 Fine Gael IRL 4 0 4 0 4 0 4 0 5 1 5 1 Forza Italia I - - - - 22 0 23 0 16 1 16 1 KDS S - - - 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 KF DK 3 0 3 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 KOK FIN - - 4 0 4 0 4 0 4 0 4 0 MSP S - - 5 0 5 0 5 0 4 0 4 0 ND EL 9 1 9 1 9 0 9 2 11 2 11 0 ÖVP A - - 7 0 7 1 7 2 6 1 6 0 PP E 28 4 28 5 27 4 27 4 24 5 24 4 PCS L 2 0 2 1 2 0 2 0 3 0 3 0 Pensionati I - - - - 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 Patto-UDEUR I 12 0 11 0 7 0 7 0 2 0 2 0 PSD-PP-CDS P - - 9 0 9 0 9 0 9 0 9 0 RPR-UMP F - - - - 12 0 11 0 17 0 17 0 Scallon IRL - - - - 1 0 1 0 - - - - SKL FIN - - - - 1 0 1 0 - - - - UDC E 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 - - - - UDF F 13 1 13 0 9 0 9 1 - - - - UUP NI 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 TOTAL 155 20 181 20 233 17 232 18 266 23 277 23

∗ It should be noted that the EPP’s MEPs from the ten new member states totalled 69, but none of them were selected as coordinators in either 2004 or 2007. * C denotes the number of co-ordinators.

40

Table A2: Distribution of co-ordinators within the PES Group, 1994-2007 1994 1997 1999 2002 2004 * 2007* Delegation State MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C MEPs C Labour GB 63 8 63 8 29 6 28 6 19 2 19 2 Labour IRL 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 MSzP H ------9 0 9 1 PASOK EL 10 0 10 0 9 0 9 0 8 1 8 0 PDS-SI I 19 2 19 4 16 0 15 0 16 1 14 1 POSL L 2 0 2 0 2 1 2 1 1 0 1 0 PS F 16 1 15 0 22 0 22 1 31 2 31 2 PS P 10 1 10 0 12 0 12 0 12 1 12 1 PS-SP B 6 1 6 0 5 0 5 0 6 1 6 2 PSOE E 21 0 21 0 24 4 24 4 24 2 24 2 PvdA NL 8 1 7 1 6 1 6 0 7 1 7 2 S DK 4 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 5 0 5 0 SAP S - - 7 0 7 0 7 0 5 0 5 0 SDLP NI 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 - - - - SDP FIN - - 6 0 3 0 3 0 3 1 3 0 SPD D 40 6 40 7 33 4 35 4 23 6 23 6 SPÖ A - - 4 0 7 0 7 0 7 2 7 1 TOTAL 201 20 216 20 180 17 179 17 199 20 217 20

* Of the 31 PES MEPs from the ten new member states, none were selected as coordinators in 2004. One Hungarian Social Democrat was selected in 2007.

41 Table A3: Distribution of office (mega-seats) * within the EPP group by national party delegation, 1994 and 1997 1994 1997 NOMINATE scores State MEPs Offices MEPs Offices Left-Right Pro or Anti CDA NL 10 4 10 2 0.027 0.023 CCD-CDU I - - 4 1 0.086 0.346 CDU-CSU D 46 12 46 13 0.027 0.127 Conservatives GB 18 3 18 4 0.059 0.077 CVP-PSC-CSP B 7 2 7 1 0.025 0.075 Fine Gael IRL 4 0 4 0 0.037 0.003 KF DK 3 1 3 0 0.001 0.077 KOK FIN - - 4 0 0.016 0.128 Moderaterna S - - 5 0 0.056 0.126 ND EL 9 2 9 2 0.016 0.001 ÖVP A - - 7 0 0.031 0.076 Partido Popular E 28 7 28 9 0.001 0.068 PCS L 2 0 2 1 0.022 0.020 Patto I 12 1 11 0 0.052 0.019 PSD P - - 9 1 0.130 0.324 UDC E 1 0 1 0 0.506 0.532 UDF F 13 3 13 1 0.027 0.339 UUP NI 1 0 - - 0.119 0.868 Correlation of mega-seats to national party delegation: .959

* Group leader, President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors of Parliament, committee chairs, group co- ordinators on committees.

42

Table A4: Distribution of mega-seats within the PES group by national party delegation, 1994 and 1997 1994 1997 NOMINATE scores State MEPs Offices MEPs Offices Left-Right Pro or Anti Labour GB 63 14 63 13 0.063 0.070 Irish Labour IRL 1 0 1 0 0.065 0.153 PASOK EL 10 1 10 1 0.043 0.137 PDS-SI I 19 4 19 6 0.042 0.094 POSL L 2 1 2 1 0.046 0.166 PS (F) F 16 3 15 2 0.080 0.254 PS (P) P 10 3 10 1 0.028 0.034 PS-SP (B) B 6 1 6 0 0.058 0.175 PSOE E 21 2 21 2 0.057 0.042 PvdA NL 8 1 7 2 0.079 0.067 S DK 4 0 4 0 0.027 0.226 SAP S - - 7 0 0.032 0.127 SDLP NI 1 0 1 0 0.005 0.059 SDP FIN - - 4 1 0.015 0.089 SPD D 40 9 40 9 0.000 0.057 SPÖ A - - 6 0 0.005 0.102 Correlation of mega-seats to national party delegation: 0.978

43

Table A5: Distribution of mega-seats within the EPP/ED Group by national party delegation, 1999 and 2002 1999 2002 NOMINATE scores State MEPs Offices MEPs Offices Left-Right Pro or Anti CDU-CSU D 53 12 53 12 0.013 0.085 CCD-CDU I 4 1 4 1 0.032 0.076 CDA NL 9 2 9 2 0.110 0.084 Conservatives GB 36 5 35 6 0.321 0.468 CVP-PSC-CSP B 6 0 6 0 0.190 0.087 Fine Gael IRL 4 1 4 1 0.119 0.090 Forza Italia I 22 2 22 2 0.049 0.089 KDS S 2 0 2 0 0.381 0.150 KF DK 1 0 1 0 0.023 0.117 KOK FIN 4 0 4 0 0.029 0.022 MSP S 5 0 5 1 0.050 0.085 ND EL 9 1 9 1 0.076 0.070 ÖVP A 7 0 7 1 0.078 0.099 Pensionati I 1 0 1 0 0.092 0.046 PP E 27 7 27 6 0.058 0.170 PCS L 2 0 2 0 0.076 0.009 Democratici-Udeur I 7 0 7 0 0.160 0.081 PSD P 9 1 9 1 0.056 0.073 RPR F 12 0 11 1 0.038 0.077 Scallon IRL 1 0 1 0 0.034 0.233 SKL FIN 1 0 1 0 0.181 0.019 UDC E 1 0 1 0 0.218 0.087 UDF F 9 1 9 0 0.118 0.102 UUP NI 1 0 1 0 0.362 0.418 Correlation of mega-seats to national party delegation: 0.948

44

Table A6: Distribution of mega-seats within the PES Group by national party delegation, 1999 and 2002 1999 2002 NOMINATE scores State MEPs Offices MEPs Offices Left-Right Pro or Anti DS-SDI I 17 2 16 2 0.020 0.067 Labour GB 29 9 28 8 0.063 0.184 Labour IRL 1 1 1 1 0.033 0.029 PASOK EL 9 0 9 1 0.045 0.047 POSL L 2 2 2 2 0.096 0.288 PS F 22 2 22 2 0.070 0.145 PS P 12 1 12 0 0.011 0.047 PS-SP B 5 2 5 0 0.067 0.139 PSOE E 24 7 24 6 0.016 0.280 PvdA NL 6 0 6 0 0.002 0.017 S DK 3 0 2 0 0.037 0.372 SAP S 6 1 6 0 0.038 0.259 SDLP NI 1 0 1 0 0.035 0.068 SDP FIN 3 0 3 0 0.008 0.038 SPD D 33 6 35 6 0.003 0.116 SPÖ A 7 0 7 0 0.007 0.085 Correlation of mega-seats to national party delegation: 0.842

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Table A7: Distribution of mega-seats within the EPP/ED Group by national party delegation, 2004 and 2007 2004 2007 State MEPs Offices MEPs Offices CDA NL 7 2 7 2 CDU-CSU D 49 12 49 12 CD&V-CDH-CSP B 6 0 6 0 Cons GB 27 7 27 9 DISO-GTE CY 3 0 3 0 EIL EE 1 0 1 0 Fidesz-MDF H 13 0 13 0 FG IRL 5 1 5 1 Forza I 16 3 16 4 JL LV 2 0 2 0 KDH-SDK SK 6 1 6 1 KDS S 2 0 2 0 KDU CZ 2 0 2 0 KF DK 1 0 1 0 KOK FIN 4 0 4 0 MSP S 4 0 4 0 ND EL 11 3 11 1 NSi-SDS SL 4 0 4 0 ODS-SNK CZ 12 1 12 1 ÖVP A 6 1 6 0 Pensionati (I) I 1 0 1 0 PCS L 3 1 3 1 PD RO - - 6 0 PP E 24 7 24 6 PN MT 2 0 2 0 PO-PSL PL 19 2 15 1 PSD-PP-CDS P 9 0 9 0 SMK SK 2 0 2 0 SVP I 1 0 1 0 TP LV 1 0 1 0 TS LT 2 0 2 0 UDC I 5 0 5 0 UDEUR I 1 0 1 0 UDF BG - - 4 0 UDMR RO - - 3 0 UMP F 17 1 17 1 UUP NI 1 1 1 1 Correlation of mega-seats to national party delegation: 0.918

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Table A8: Distribution of mega-seats within the PES Group by national party delegation, 2004 and 2007 2004 2007 State MEPs Offices MEPs Offices BSP BG - - 6 0 CSSD CZ 2 0 2 0 DS-SDI I 16 2 14 1 Labour GB 19 3 19 3 Labour IRL 1 0 1 0 Labour MT 3 0 3 0 LSD LT 2 0 2 0 MSzP H 9 1 9 2 PASOK EL 8 2 8 1 POSL L 1 0 1 0 PS F 31 4 31 4 PS P 12 2 12 2 PS-SP B 7 2 7 3 PSD RO - - 12 0 PSOE E 24 4 24 4 PvdA NL 7 1 7 2 S DK 5 0 5 0 SAP S 5 0 5 1 SDE EE 3 0 3 0 SDP FIN 3 1 3 1 SLD-SDP PL 8 1 9 1 Smer SK 3 0 3 0 SPD D 23 9 23 9 SPÖ A 7 2 7 2 ZLSD SL 1 0 1 0 Correlation of mega-seats to national party delegation: 0.795

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